This Lovely City

by Louise Hare

  She rang the bell by the door and waited, her weight shifting from one foot to the other. Glancing down she noticed a splash of mud that she’d missed, right in the centre of her skirt. Too late. She heard clipped footsteps echoing towards her, the click of the locking mechanism.

  The woman who opened the door was dressed in a plain navy blue and white uniform, a nurse’s watch pinned to her sagging bosom. Her sparse greying hair was severely pinned back into a greasy bun. She looked Evie up and down, finding her wanting.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked, folding her arms across her chest.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Evie panicked, suddenly unprepared even though it was all she’d thought about for days. ‘I wondered what it is you do here exactly. I mean, I know what the home is for, sort of, only I know someone who—’

  ‘Relative, is it?’ The woman was impatient, the fingers of one hand playing with the set of keys hooked onto her belt.

  ‘Yes.’ She felt relief at answering even so simple a question correctly.

  ‘Come in then.’ The woman walked off, leaving the door hanging open. ‘Close that behind you.’

  Evie followed her into a reception room, presumably one they kept for show because Ma had told her what it was like living here as an inmate and this room seemed far too welcoming. The woman gestured towards a sofa and Evie sat down, smoothing a hand over the soft brown leather. This was where they brought the distraught parents then, allowing them to convince themselves that their daughters would be left in safe hands. The room was bright and airy with high ceilings. Framed artwork decorated the walks and Evie saw that some of it was amateurish: bright coloured abstract landscapes that reminded her of childhood.

  ‘We let the girls paint every now and again. Keeps their minds occupied,’ the woman said. ‘Mrs Devonport. I’m the matron here. I didn’t catch your name.’

  ‘Miss… Bayley.’ She grabbed at a name. She couldn’t give Coleridge in case this woman remembered her mother; she looked old enough to have been working here when Evie was born. She didn’t want to taint Matthews before the name was even hers. ‘I’m here on behalf of my parents. My sister, she’s in need of a place to stay. She’s only fifteen. You must know how it is. My father doesn’t want anyone to know.’

  Mrs Devonport sniffed. ‘How far gone is she?’

  ‘She’s just begun to show. That’s how my mother realised what she’d done. She reckons four months or so.’

  Mrs Devonport said nothing, just looked at Evie, her eyes narrowed. With a jolt Evie remembered that she wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. With her dark skin, this woman was trying to work out what sort of family she was from. Where they were from.

  ‘My father is furious,’ she said quickly. ‘We don’t live round here. He wants to make sure no one we know accidentally bumps into my sister while she’s away.’

  ‘We’re full at the moment,’ Mrs Devonport told her. ‘Can I ask you, was the father also…’ She waved a hand in Evie’s general direction.

  ‘No. He is white. Very pale, in fact.’ Too much, she thought. She’d made him sound vampiric; had the oddest image of this imaginary white-skinned ne’er-do-well in her mind and had to bite her lip to stop the incongruous giggle that bubbled up in her throat.

  ‘I don’t mean to cause offence,’ Mrs Devonport continued, her face contradictory. ‘Reason I ask is that I’m assuming she won’t be keeping the child.’

  ‘No. We had heard that you could help with that. That you place babies with families that can care for them when their mothers can’t. Or won’t.’ Evie’s chest tightened.

  ‘We do, only when they look – foreign – it’s difficult. Most adoptive parents want a child what looks like it could be theirs, even if they know that it isn’t.’

  ‘So you’re saying that if this baby was born with dark skin – like mine, for example – then it might be tricky to find an adoptive family? You’ve had experience with this sort of thing?’ Evie held her breath as she waited for the answer. It had been less than a year. Surely this woman had would remember Annabel.

  ‘Once.’ Mrs Devonport stretched out the word as if reluctant to let her admission out. ‘But it was a very specific situation. One of the nuns arranged a private adoption that went through our books but it wasn’t really to do with us. The mother wasn’t one of our girls, you see, and the child was only here for a few days before the new family came to take her.’

  Evie exhaled. Her mother had told her the truth then. Annabel was safe, hopefully in a happier home than Evie could have provided. She’d expected to feel something more but the numbness prevailed, as if her body was trying to protect her, not convinced by the evidence before her.

  Mrs Devonport stood. ‘If you want to leave your details I can have someone contact you if a place does come available. It is unlikely though so I would advise you to look elsewhere.’

  When Evie reached the pavement outside, she glanced up as she saw a movement at one of the second-storey windows. A girl stood there, younger than Evie and pale as a ghost. She was motionless, her slight body only visible from the torso upwards. In her arms she held a blanketed bundle. Her baby. To anyone else she would have made a pathetic figure, hopeless and vulnerable. But all Evie felt was envy.

  Extract from the Evening Standard – Wednesday 19th April 1950

  SHOCK TWIST IN BABY OPHELIA CASE – WOMAN RELEASED

  Annette Dudley, 39, of Putney, was today released without charge following the production of new evidence. Sanderson was charged last week with the murder of the baby girl known as Ophelia, whose body was discovered in Eagle Pond, Clapham Common, last month. It was thought that Mrs Dudley was the mother of that baby girl, but her one-year-old son has now been found.

  Police say that it was Mrs Dudley’s sister who came forward with the baby boy who had been in her care since December, following her engagement and subsequent marriage to local bank manager George Dudley.

  ‘We all wish that Mrs Dudley had found fit to disclose the truth when first questioned,’ DS Kenneth Rathbone told this reporter. ‘We are yet to decide whether to charge her with wasting police time and holding up what is a very sensitive investigation.’

  The police were keen to reassure the public that they are already picking up the investigative strands that were dropped in light of the Dudley arrest. DS Rathbone stressed that any information, no matter how trivial, should be reported to the police.

  ‘We fought a war and sacrificed so many good men in order to preserve the great British values that have been undermined in such a brutal way through this child’s death,’ DS Rathbone told the press conference. ‘I urge the local community to help us bring her killer to justice.’

  19

  The news hit Lawrie like a punch in the stomach. Aston slapped the paper down onto the kitchen table.

  ‘You watch, there’ll be trouble now,’ he warned.

  As if there hadn’t already been trouble. Word was that Johnny’s house wasn’t the only victim of a violent attack. Ursula had insisted on getting the police round, for all the use they’d been. One constable had appeared, younger than Lawrie and less sure of himself. He’d only taken notes when Ursula stood over him and offered to write them for him if he wasn’t able. In the darkness, she’d not got a good look at any of the five or six men, only able to confirm that they’d been white. They’d all worn hats so that from above, as she peered out of the window from behind the curtain, they looked much alike.

  The band played a club in Soho that night, one of a handful of safe venues, and Lawrie was glad to see that it wasn’t just him who was worried.

  ‘They as good as sayin’ it’s one of us,’ Sonny ranted. ‘May as well be all of us the way they talk, the way they look at me. How dare they say such things? Like we all criminals when we the ones getting attacked in our own homes, vandalising us, trying to intimidate us into leaving.’

  ‘You been here long enough to know this nothing new,’ Moses pointed out. ‘This murder business just making
’em feel better. Proof that they was right all along. We just got to ride it out. ’Less you want to do what they say and get on that boat home.’

  Sonny kissed his teeth and stared down at the floor, shaking his head. ‘So we just get on with things? You give up or you go on. That’s it? Two options?’

  ‘Two options.’ Moses grinned. He’d always been quiet but since the wedding, and the attack at Johnny’s, he’d begun to stand taller and speak before he was spoken to. ‘Who here can afford to go home anyway?’

  Not Johnny, with a family to support. Sonny, maybe, but nobody else. They’d made that trip from Kingston banking on settling in England for the foreseeable future. The mother country had sent out its mayday message and her plea had been answered, but memories seemed short.

  Soho, at least, was a sanctuary. Just walking from home to the bus stop these days Lawrie felt as though he was being watched; sized up and considered, his paranoia growing daily. Might it be him? Was he the father? Had he done the deed? The unspoken questions echoed continuously in his ears when he was out on the terraced streets of Brixton but the Soho crowd were loose, eager for music and jazz and cigarettes and whisky. They saw a musician when they looked at him in his new sharp suit (for his wedding, a justifiable expense), not a criminal.

  ‘You think you can give us all a lift home tonight, Sonny? Be on the safe side?’ Johnny asked.

  Sonny nodded. ‘It’ll be a rough trip but you’ll get home in one piece.’

  Afterwards, riding each bump in the road, his arse turning numb on the hard floor of the van, Lawrie wondered whether he might not have been better taking his chances on the bus. It reminded him of the last time he’d made such a trip, the night of the Wandsworth wedding.

  ‘You got plans tonight?’ Aston asked at breakfast the next day. ‘I thought we should call another meeting. See who knows what.’

  ‘I’m taking Evie out.’ Lawrie stirred his porridge, avoiding Aston’s stare and wishing his friend had stayed in bed rather than deciding to rise according to Lawrie’s pre-dawn alarm.

  ‘This is more important. You even read the paper? Pickin’ up old strands, they say. That’s you, Lawrie, if you forgot.’

  ‘Forgot? How could I?’ He struggled not to raise his voice. ‘But until they come callin’, my life is goin’ on as normal. I’m not hiding, Aston. I’m not changing my life just in case Rathbone comes back knockin’.’

  ‘Sensible boy.’ Arthur sucked at his tea. ‘Lighten up, Aston. My money’s still on the mother, whoever she is.’

  ‘Well, I agree with you on that,’ Aston told him. ‘See, I been thinkin—’

  Lawrie groaned.

  ‘Least I don’t just stick me head in the ground, pretendin’ like none of this happen.’ Aston threw his spoon down on the table with a clatter.

  ‘I’m going to work.’ It was easier to walk away from Aston than concede that he might have a point.

  He was first in as usual and got on with sorting, head down, not giving Donovan a chance to come in and find him at rest. No doubt he’d read the Standard and was ready to remind Lawrie how lucky he was to have this job.

  ‘Matthews!’ The bellow came later than expected, the office bustling and Lawrie about to head out into the beginnings of a glorious spring day.

  Bert shared a smile of commiseration with him as he slunk off to see the boss. Bert was a decent fella. He’d have liked to get to know him better. Perhaps if he’d made more effort to get to know the people he worked with, he wouldn’t feel so alone now. Maybe when this was finally all over.

  Donovan was sitting behind his desk when Lawrie walked into the office, fingers steepled as he leaned his elbows on the surface.

  ‘Close the door.’

  Lawrie did as he was told and was surprised when Donovan gestured to him to sit. The folders had been cleared from the chair and the whole place looked more organised than on his last visit.

  ‘You promised me that you had nothing to do with that baby,’ Donovan said.

  ‘And that’s true, sir. Hand on heart.’ He placed his hand on his chest, feeling the quickening beat of the organ he swore upon.

  ‘So why have I got this detective hanging around? Asking about you, insinuating that I’m receiving stolen goods, threatening me?’ Donovan was sweating, Lawrie noticed.

  ‘He’s desperate. You heard they had to let that woman go? You know it’s got nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I don’t know, Matthews, that’s why you’re here. Have you been talking? How does he know about the sugar?’ Donovan dabbed a handkerchief delicately against his forehead. ‘What’ve you been saying?’

  Lawrie tried to think but his head was fuzzy. ‘I didn’t tell him anything. Why would I get myself in more trouble?’

  ‘Well, when a policeman comes to my house and asks me, in front of my wife, why our sugar bowl is full to the brim, I don’t appreciate it, Mr Matthews. I don’t care if you did it or not, I’m going to have to let you go.’

  Lawrie’s head snapped up, Donovan refusing to look him in the eye. ‘Sir, you can’t! I’ve done nothing wrong, you know that. Just over a few bags of sugar?’

  ‘It’s not up to me now, Matthews. Rathbone could report both of us and if it comes down to my job or yours then I’ve made my decision.’

  ‘That’s what he said? That if you didn’t fire me he’d come after you?’

  It wasn’t a question. Lawrie knew quite well by now what Rathbone was like. If his boss had any sort of backbone then maybe it wouldn’t have worked but it didn’t take a genius to suss Donovan out. He’d cave in an instant, only the tiniest amount of pressure needed to reduce him to this wreck.

  ‘Sir, I promise you I never said a word.’ Lawrie swallowed down his distaste at the words he was about to say. ‘But you let me go like this, then I might have to.’

  His boss stared at him, the threat unexpected. Lawrie just hoped the man didn’t look down and see how his hands trembled in his lap.

  Finally Donovan spoke: ‘How about we come to an arrangement? We both keep our mouths shut and you hand in your notice instead of me firing you. I’ll sort it out so that you get a month’s pay and a reference. You’re to leave immediately and stay off the premises. I’ll drop your wages in at Derek’s stall.’

  ‘What if this were all to sort itself out before the month’s up?’ Lawrie asked. ‘If they arrest someone, the real culprit I mean, then Rathbone will leave us both alone.’

  There had to be some hope. He couldn’t see how he could fund his new life with Evie just by playing his clarinet a few nights a week and cycling round south London delivering bags of sugar and the odd pair of stockings.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Donovan said eventually. He pushed a pad of paper and a pen across the desk. ‘Keep it brief.’

  His hand shook as he dashed off a note, little more than a line, and signed his name below. He walked out of the office in a daze, glad that most of the men had already headed out on their walks. Only Bert lagged behind.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asked Lawrie.

  ‘Not really.’ His laugh was brittle. ‘Donovan’s let me go.’

  ‘What? Fired, you mean? What for?’

  ‘Long story.’

  Lawrie tried to walk around him, needing to get out of the building before he lost control, his head pounding with the effort it took to hold back the tears.

  ‘What about the union? He can’t do this, you know. Had it in for you since day one, even I’ve noticed and I’m not the most observant bloke around.’ Bert put a hand on Lawrie’s arm. ‘You want me to talk to Gary for you? He’s the shop steward.’

  Lawrie shook his head, not trusting himself to speak without his voice wavering. He put his hand out, shaking Bert’s before leaving the building.

  He didn’t want to go straight home and his feet carried him towards the market. Mrs Ryan would make such a fuss and he didn’t think he could bear it. He passed through the Art Deco archway into Reliance Arcade. The market remi
nded him of home even though the offerings were often pitiful in comparison. The vegetable stalls were muted in colour; no bright green bananas or yellow-brown plantain. The carrots looked stunted and the only food in abundance seemed to be cabbage. He stopped off to buy a bag of apples, the red-tinged variety that was Derek’s favourite.

  He could see Derek up ahead, putting on a grandstand performance for a crowd of housewives who’d gathered more for the entertainment than because they had a need for the oven gloves that Derek was trying to sell them. Lawrie stood at the back and watched the show.

  ‘Now, ladies and gentleman.’ Derek looked up and winked at Lawrie, grinning. ‘See this baking tin?’ He held it aloft. ‘I’m sure you all have one of these at home. You’re making the Sunday dinner and you want to make sure you put the perfect roast potatoes out on the table. The sort of roasties your husband talks about down the pub they’re so good.’

  A knob of lard went in and Derek laid the tin on a lit camping stove, dangerously balanced on a slab of wood. The patter continued as the pan heated up, the women laughing as Derek poked gentle fun at members of the crowd. He possessed a level of confidence that only Aston could rival. If only Lawrie had a similar gift then maybe he wouldn’t be in such a mess.

  ‘Now look, ladies, when I drop this egg into the fat.’

  Derek cracked an egg more expertly than his mother would have believed, dropping it from a height into the tin. There was an audible sizzle as the liquid egg hit the hot spitting fat.

  ‘You can see and hear how hot this tin must be and yet…’ Derek pulled on his oven gloves and lifted the tin aloft, tilting it so that the frying egg could easily be seen, its white no longer translucent. ‘I can hold onto this as long as I want, my precious hands protected from the heat. This is a quality product, ladies, a must-have for any kitchen and on special today only! Come on, ladies, who’ll give me three bob and save their fair hands from the heat of the oven?’

  Most of the crowd dissipated quickly, uninterested now that the spectacle was over. Derek didn’t look concerned. He shifted eight pairs of the oven gloves immediately, Lawrie waiting until the last transaction had been conducted before walking up.